The effects of the cooked
figures is part of the rewrite of
history.Never trust the ruling class,
they are grinding their own ax—a trait of organizations. Things are much
worse than the BLS’s
numbers.See also Kevin Phillip’s
article on the Numbers
Racquet, published in Harpers Magazine.What I have written is a call for a true account both of the rate of
inflation and a more realistic GDP, one which permits a comparison of the
current economic strength of a nations as measured by the purchasing power of
the bottom 95%--jk.

What
follows below is a call for you who have the skills, access to academic
economists and a wide readership to set the record straight as to the actual rate
of inflation, and to create a new GDP that reflects the
material productivity of our nation.Economist John Williams (http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts) has
addressed this issue in a subscription service for corporations to improve
their economic modeling.Williams
finds that the BLS rate underestimates by
roughly 7%,
for 2006.See also in 2008 Kevin Philips
athttp://www.skeptically.org/crash/id20.html.
Liberal economists need to
correct the economic data so as to present a true accounting of decline under
the neoliberal-corporate takeover.

The ruling
globalizing corporations, especially those in the financial sector, use the
artificially-low interest rate and official government economic figures which
support that low rate to promote their ends.M.R. shouldn’t use their numbers.I have found numerous distortions in your articles based on their
figurers.For example there are 3 on
page 19 of Internationalization of
Monopoly Capital, June 2011 issue:1)
economic stagnation of the last 3
decades; 2) that there has been growth of the world economy faster than the
increase in population; 3) giant corporations are too big to fail.These myths ought to be
refuted.

3)Two
area need to be corrected to contradict the capitalist sales pitch:one
the strength of the economy and benefits
to the bottom 95%.The distortion created
by the expansion of currency following the US going off the gold standard in
1972 has inflated the GDP figures without improving wages are wealth for the
bottom 95%.This expansion of credit
used in a casino economy distorts both the GDP and the purchasing power of the
bottom 95%.A new measure reflecting the
soundness of a nation’s economy is needed.This new GDP should be based on the good made, exports that serve as a
basis to offset cost of imports.The
figure should exclude military expenditures, interest payments, and profits
going out of the country.This measure
of the wealth of a nation should not include the inflated service sector that
includes finance.A second figured is
need to measure the purchasing power for the bottom 95%, what the worker gets
for his labor.

An
accurately measure of the financial
state of the bottom 95% would include a basket of the major items that they
use:food, housing, utilities,
transportation, education, healthcare, housing and then the number of hours the
median income person needs to work to acquire that basket.Besides serving as
a measure of the real
economy, it also measures inflation. You could set up a table as to how many
hours the median income person must work to purchase these basic items over the
last 5 decades.

Also needing
correction is the CPI, which permits the bottom 95% to gauge
their declining situation.The financial
sector (the biggest player in the shadow government) keeps prime rates low in
favored countries because the debt which they have purchased such as US Treasury
bonds and t-bills, are used to meet the reserve requirement (assuming it is
enforced) for fractional reserve banking and thereby expand credit.The expansion
of credit accounts for most of
their revenues.If the rates of interest
on government bonds reflected the actual rate of inflation—say 12%--then the US
would collapse under the load of high interest rates on its debt—as it has in
Greece and Spain (a topic worthy of an article exposing the plight of these
nations; also one on the high rates paid by underdeveloped nations).This causes
civil unrest, possible defaults
on debt, and a reduction in military spending.The US & EU militaries are the boot in the globalizing corporatist
takeover.These are compelling reasons
for an artificially low prime rate for the favored countries.

6) Having
pegged the rate of inflation artificially low, it is used to create stats to
sell their neoliberal economics in the corporate press.The expansion of credit
creates the illusion
of economic growth through their GDP figures based on debt, and the increasing
debt of the workers hides their decline in purchasing power.Interest rates
are historically low; but
interest payments historically high.They suck up purchasing power:consume 23% of the median family’s income, over 800 billion of the
federal budget, similar amounts from corporations, and from the state &
local governments.The service sector accounts
for 70% of GDP up from 30% in 1970, and most of it consists of finance--which
makes 44% of corporate profits.To count
this distortion in the GDP of the service sector by including parasitic finance
is like counting the weight of a person with a watermelon-size tumor.[1]The over-priced health care system
is another
tumor, as is advertising, and the federal taxes.The value of their services
is only a small
fraction of their costs.They consume
too much of the family budget.Not only
has real wages shrunk since 1970 while productivity has risen, but the burden
of interest payments, health care, etc has dramatically risen.While the economy
might be stagnant, the
conditions of the bottom 95% have declined.The same too for the world economy, personal wealth for the 95% is declining.We need figures which accurately reflect the
real economy, based on durable goods and resources.We need accurate figures
to measure the worth
of labor.

As for the
third point above, “too big to fail”:M.R. has written of the shadow government which it calls oligopoly
capitalism.They aren’t too big to fail,
but too well connected.Monopolies have
in the past been broken up, such as Standard Oil & AT&T, and they can
still be broken up, or nationalized if the government served a different
master—Lazaro Cardenas nationalized Mexican oil and refineries in 1938.We
need to end the corporatist state, than
they can fail.University economics
ought not to be part of the problem, but rather the forum for the fix; and the
Monthly Review ought to stand up as it did when it published Why Socialism? by Albert
Einstein and The ABC of
Socialism by Leo Huberman, rather than become entangled
in
the university debates on issues that are far removed from the plight of the
masses; a debate that obscures that the purpose of government is the promotion
of the public weal.

[1]The problems from
financialization come from
the expansion of credit without sufficient regulatory oversight.Expansion
is based upon fractional reserves
most of which is government debt they hold.This credit banking allocates based upon maximization of short-term
profits; thus the growth of derivates, futures, currency raiding, etc.Stagnations
primary cause is not
financialization--as you write--but liberalization as required by free-trade
agreements that have removed the power of the state to protect labor and
national businesses, set tariffs, which promote a living wage.The financial
sector chose casino markets
because of the contracting economy’s poor returns.We need populism with
its measure of
government regulations being the betterment of conditions for the bottom 95%.
This can only be accomplished by radical political parties whose popularity and
success might follow the collapse of the corporatist global order like in 1929,
but this time it ought to remove their political voice (the media and political
donations).

Enter supporting content here

Must watch:

Parts of Europe (such ask Netherlands and Denmark) use small local electricity generation plants, which permits the use of the byproduct heat for heating.In one example they use all he CO2 generated to supply 4,000 hectares of green houses.The combined heating and energy production (CHP) is a proven technology that lowers the energy consumption
for electricty and heating by over 50%. British (BBC) documentary on this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klooRS-Jjyo&mode=related&search

Teddy Roosevelt's advice that, "We must drive the special interests out of politics. The citizens of the United
States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have themselves
called into being. There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains."

For the
best account of the Federal Reserve(http://www.freedocumentaries.org/film.php?id=214).One cannot understand U.S. politics,
U.S. foreign policy, or the world-wide economic crisis
unless one understands the role of the Federal Reserve Bank and its role in the financialization phenomena.The same sort of national-banking relationships as in our country also exists in Japan and most
of Europe.